Public Service Psychology | October 2014

In this issue

President-elect's column

Overview of 2014 APA convention, division website and social media efforts.

By Timothy Carmody, PhD

As I begin my term as president-elect, I am looking forward to serving the division over the next three years and collaborating with so many talented and dedicated public service psychology leaders. I look forward to working with our current president, Femina Varghese, and past president, Anne Klee, as well as with all of the members of the executive board. I look forward to sustaining and building upon current initiatives that provide value to our members. I am especially excited about the planning that has already begun for our strategic plan meeting to be held next March.

The 2014 APA Annual Convention was a huge success. Our convention co-chairs, Erica Fitzgerald, PhD, and Erica Lee, PhD, did an outstanding job putting together an excellent program. In addition to several symposia and poster sessions, there were a number of section and divisionwide meetings in the Div. 18 hospitality suite at the Grand Hyatt Washington hotel. The internship panel and Mimosa Mixer: Div. 18 Student Social Hour were huge hits. All members were also invited to the Psychological Services Editorial Board luncheon. Div. 18 also hosted an informal roundtable at the APA convention. This event provided an opportunity for Div. 18 members to learn about the process of getting nominated and elected to APA boards and committees. On Aug. 9, during the business meeting, we honored several members with division awards. Thank you to Jacquie Wall for overseeing the many details of the awards process and to members Drs. Mary Lu Bushnell, PsyD; Shannon Griswold, PsyD; Bret Moore, PsyD; Kathy McNamara, PhD; Steve Norton, PhD; Amee Patel, PhD; Ellen Scrivner, PhD and Femina Varghese, PhD, for serving on different award selection committees. At the business meeting, Bob Goldberg, PhD, the division's fellowship chair, recognized several members receiving fellowship status. We are already looking forward to the APA convention next summer in Toronto.

Our membership chairs, Layne Goble, PhD, and Linda Richardson, PhD, have been learning the membership system, planning new member recruitment, and implementing former member recruit-back initiatives. They have been working hard to update the division and section Listservs, welcoming new members, and reaching out to those who have not renewed. Please encourage your colleagues to consider joining Div.18. It is no secret that membership is down. We are not the only division in which this has occurred. The number of early career psychologists joining our division is especially low. The Executive Board is interested in reaching out to Div. 18 members to find out how to stimulate membership growth, particularly among students and early career psychologists. We are interested in hearing from you.

Jack Tsai is working on updating the Div. 18 webpages. Please let us know if you have any suggestions about content or format. We want to make the website informative, attractive, and up-to-date. We want to post more pictures of members and events on the webpages. Have you checked out the Members in Action? This is one of my favorite features on our website. With the help of our student members and under the leadership of Jodi Bremer Landau, the Div. 18 webpage has started to showcase Members in Action. Student members have interviewed accomplished members across the sections. These profiles went live at the time of the APA convention. Members currently included are Joel Dvoskin, Arthur Evans, Jon Marrelli, Steve Holliday, and Lorraine Greene.

Student members Katherine Taylor Lynch and Jodi Bremer Landau announced the launch of the VA Section of APA Div. 18 on Facebook and Twitter. They assembled an enthusiastic team of Social Media Ambassadors that include Jack Tsai, Jessica Price, Josh Tal, Xiao Meng and Heather Sones, who will be posting on both websites. Student member Clarence Bonander has been managing Div. 18's Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts and doing a wonderful job. Please like all of our Facebook pages, follow us on Twitter, and help spread the word to friends and colleagues!

The top priority of our president, Femina Varghese, is to create a strategic plan for Div. 18. The executive board has begun to plan the steps we will take in developing a new strategic plan. This will include a face-to-face meeting in March at the time of our spring conference. Div. 18 has not had a strategic plan for several years. Membership growth and management of our funds depend on our having a clear, meaningful, and visionary strategic plan. I look forward to participating in the process that will yield a strategic plan. By the time I begin my year as president, we will hopefully be in a position to embark on the action steps involved in implementing the new strategic plan. Stay tuned.